Really, since we've done this so many times, we're no longer intimidated by the recipes. Well, I still say a quick, silent prayer whenever we have to do any piping work. But, it's a lot like doing hair color: Break it down into its component steps. And, since we know we can make a genoise, a mousseline and a fondant, we can surely put it together. And, I think that we did a fine job of it.

Even the piping turned out nice. They are supposed to look like lilies, and they do!

This was made e asy for a host of reasons. We had made the white genoise a few weeks ago. Frozen, it'll keep 2 months. We just defrosted it and followed the directions. J had the idea to make the cake layers at our last baking session. And, I thank her.

As for the Cointreau, we decided an orange flavored liquor could be substituted with another one, right? So we used the Grand Marnier that we had on hand.

We decided that making Orange Curd was a big waste of time. While we loved the color and the flavor, the runny texture and effort of making it is too big a drawback. We just substituted lemon curd, and added it to the mousseline.

Do you remember the mousseline? Neither could I. It is the one with a syrup of water and sugar, that gets drizzled into egg whites beaten with sugar. You beat this until it's cool, which has never happened in the prescribed time of 2 minutes. Then, you add butter, lots of butter, and beat until smooth. If you want to add liqueur or a flavor variation, you do so now. Yum!

I really don't care for fondant. It never tastes as good as you want it to and I usually pull it off. While I'm slowly lobbing blobs of butter into the kitchen aid full of egg whites, J made the fondant. We only had dark corn syrup. So, you'll notice that there is a lovely light beige tone to the fondant. We liked it quite a bit. The slight color difference made the piping really stand out and look more beautiful. The flavor of the fondant was enha nced with orange flower water. There was a nice fragrance wafting from the cake; a flowery orange aroma followed by the orange flavor of the cake. In tasting our slice, we actually ate the fondant!!

Periodically J and I would stop what we were doing and wander over to the other's station to check on the progress. The fondant starts out a crumbly mess. With some kneading, the gelatin, water, glucose(that's where the corn syrup is substituted), glycerin, solid white shortening and powdered sugar all come together at first, it looks a bit like a very dry biscuit dough. You'll notice how smooth J got it. The cracks seem to happen to us because we are too slow applying it to the cake.

It's come to the point that we've developed almost a short hand and have to constantly check to make sure we've not skipped or doubled up on steps. We each know what the other is going to do and rarely are we wrong about it.

I have to thank J for doing all the pre prep stuff. Sometimes, I feel like a FoodTV chef who's production assistants have done everything so all I have to do is smile for the camera and pour the pre-measured amounts into the stunningly clean Kitchen Aid.

This cake was lovely. We were both so excited, not just by how it looks or just by how good it tasted. For the first time, in a long time, we liked the cake we made! Then, on the first sunny day we've had baking in a long, long while, there we were, all done, sitting outside in the sun, sipping soda and tea and just chattin'